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Azerbaijan is using the COP29 UN climate summit both to “greenwash” and “peacewash” its global image, says Anna Melikyan, a legal expert at the Protection of Rights Without Borders NGO.

She made the remarks at a conference titled “The Impact of Azerbaijan’s Aggression on Human Rights and Environmental Protection,” a side event of COP29 organized independently in Armenia on Thursday.

“Azerbaijan is trying to show that the so-called liberated territories, where they have conducted ethnic cleansing, are going to be used for the production of green energy and environmental protection,” the lawyer stated.

She highlighted that Azerbaijan’s human rights violations during the 2020 military aggression against Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) and the COP29 topics were closely linked.

Anna Melikyan and her partners were engaged in a fact-finding mission to record violations of the Artsakh people’s rights throughout 2020, before and after it, visiting various communities in Artsakh, and speaking with local residents.

“In fact, the war criminals, Azerbaijani troops, made it very easy for us. In 2020 and even after that, numerous videos circulating on social media, particularly on Telegram, would portray the war crimes against Armenian civilians and prisoners of war. They were not even afraid of any responsibility. Their sought to terrorize the local population and ensure that the villagers leave their homes,” Melikyan underscored.

The lawyer pointed to brutal killings of Armenians by Azeri soldiers, including extrajudicial executions by decapitation.

“We haven’t spoken much about female victims. According to the data we have as a result of expertise, at least seven women were tortured to death, including decapitated,” the lawyer said, highlighting that the international community’s failure to condemn Azerbaijan’s appalling war crimes paved the way for similar crimes against Armenians in 2022 and 2023.